In the Igbo Nation, the elders will tell that stubborn young man that “anaghi agwa ochi nti na agha esu” [no one needs to tell a deaf person that war has broken out because everyone can see and notice that there is war]. In the world of AI, Bill Gates has dropped some words: “Google has owned all the search profits, so the search profits will be down, and their share of it may be down because Microsoft has been able to move fairly fast on that one.

“Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing, because you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you will never go to Amazon again”.

“A decade from now, we won’t think of those businesses as separate, because the AI will know you so well that when you are buying gifts or planning trips, it won’t care if Amazon has the best price or if someone else has a better price, you won’t even need to think about it. I would be disappointed if Microsoft didn’t come in there. But I am impressed with a couple of startups”.

May we not be deaf in this evolving digital market. And the only way to show that we HEAR is to go and build, understanding that AI will redesign and transform markets and economies.

Bill Gates Predicts That AI Could Displace Google Search, Amazon, And Other Tech Giants

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has predicted that given the speed at which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being developed, it could displace Google Search, Amazon, and other big tech giants.

Gates, while speaking in a podcast on an episode titled “In Good Company”, hosted by Norwegian philanthropist Nicolai Tangen, said that Google’s huge revenue is likely to fall in the future because the company which he co-founded Microsoft has integrated AI into its products.

Gates stated that the first company to develop such a program will be the market leader and could potentially alter user behavior for good.

In his words,

“Google has owned all the search profits, so the search profits will be down, and their share of it may be down because Microsoft has been able to move fairly fast on that one. Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing, because you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you will never go to Amazon again.

“A decade from now, we won’t think of those businesses as separate, because the AI will know you so well that when you are buying gifts or planning trips, it won’t care if Amazon has the best price or if someone else has a better price, you won’t even need to think about it. I would be disappointed if Microsoft didn’t come in there. But I am impressed with a couple of startups”.

Gates further predicted that the future winner of Artificial Intelligence would either be a startup or a tech giant.

His comment is coming after the company he co-founded Microsoft, earlier this month, unveiled an AI-powered version of its search engine, Bing, which sees it as a big challenger to Google’s dominance in the search engine space.

Microsoft has been working tirelessly lately, in making search more visual by introducing richer, more visual answers, including charts and graphs, and updated answer formatting. The company is also delivering these visual experiences in chat and has expanded the Bing Image Creator to support over 100 languages.

The company is also working towards making search more productive by offering features such as access to chat history and the ability to share and export. In addition, Microsoft Edge will soon have improved summarization capabilities for long documents, including PDFs and longer-form websites. Also, it plans to build third-party plugins into the Bing chat experience, turning it into a platform for developers.

Notably, Microsoft in collaboration with OpenAI, is committed to making this opportunity as accessible and consistent as possible for developers, believing that these types of skills can revolutionize search and advance opportunities for developers in the search domain.

Looking at the interesting features Microsoft has introduced to its AI-powered Bing, Google’s dominance for over two decades might likely be coming to an end, as the search space is being revolutionized.

Meanwhile, Google is hell-bent on maintaining its dominance as a search giant as it has also unveiled its AI chatbot Bard, the company’s experimental conversational AI service which is powered by  Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA). 

Google has described Bard as a “conversational AI service” that combines the depth of the world’s information with the power, intelligence, and creativity of its large language models to help deliver answers to inquiries. Similar to ChapGPT, Bard uses online information to give new, high-quality responses. 

Following the debut of OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT last year, the AI field has made tremendous strides. So many tech companies are incorporating AI tools into their products to enhance users’ experience.

Our piece on the semiconductor and microelectronics domain was featured by LinkedIn News editors, as they report on another huge project coming up in the United States: “Computer chip investment under the CHIPS Act includes a focus on research and development, and one firm, Applied Materials, is doubling down on Silicon Valley with a $4 billion R&D hub. “

Good People, many years ago, out of Johns Hopkins and leading designs in Analog Devices in Boston, I conceived First Atlantic Semiconductors and Microelectronics (FASMICRO). We acquired land off Factory Road in Aba and struck partnerships to build a microelectronics business in Nigeria. The vision was a chip business with a small microfabrication unit. As I progressed, it became clear that the real business is electricity!

That vision has not died but I cannot tell investors that I must raise money for generators before raising money to build a factory. If we follow that path, we cannot be competitive globally. So, that is why we now focus on programmable microprocessors and ASIC. This is the most important part of my Group as we own a key part of it in Africa, supporting schools, governments and companies.

Read LinkedIn piece here

Check Fasmicro on Intel website 

I love electronics right from junior secondary when I connected with electrons in Integrated Science. If Nigeria can provide decent electricity, as a platform for commerce, our future will evolve stronger.